Disclaimer: *laughs her ass off*
AN: For Dia-san... 'specially since she let me write a Ryou P.O.V. for her ficlet. >^_^< Lurve the Dia-san! ('Cause you all know that she rocks.)
*tackleGLOMPhugglesqueeze*
~ * ~
I can hear your screaming. I don't know what to do, huddled as I am, curled up into a shivering ball of flesh and blood - but I can still hear your screaming. I know that you'll scream yourself hoarse soon if you don't stop... but I can't seem to make myself care.
I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry, Yami.
I know that you're cold, freezing inside and out. I know that you've tried to warm yourself with as many ways as possible - even Yugi has tried to help in the only way that he knows how. But he didn't end up helping and you believe that he only made things worse than what they previously were. I'm sorry for that. Oh - so very sorry.
Icicles have begun to form on the inside of my soul room. I can see my breath fogging in the air, turning into some barely-there zephyr, twisting this way and that until it finally winds its way up towards the ceiling, disappearing sometime and somewhere along the way.
I like watching the fog that my breath makes. I like watching it - so sparkling and shining and cutting and pure pure white and coldly beautiful. Like you. (But why is it that the cold reminds me of you when it's killing me piece by piece? I'm so cold, Yami...)
You're so sparkling and beautiful, even when you're drenched with blood, smiling sadistically at others while they watch it drip drip drip and puddle down on the ground below you. As much as it disgusts me, as much as I want to turn away - deny it somehow, swirling away in sweet oblivion - I can't deny it because... it's you. And you're my Yami.
Dangerous and gorgeous and tasting faintly of blood, almost like the vague aftertaste of a cherry Tootsie Pop. Metallic and sour and bitter and oddly sweeter-than-sweet.
I can hear you screaming at me again: You love me, but hate me, and think me a coward. I know - I know that you hate me. You can't help it. I know that you love me and want to shower me with riches beyond my wildest dreams, bathing me in the blood of those I despise the most. I know that you think me a coward - which I am. I run and run and run. I always hide from my faults and my problems, denying them as I deny everything else... including you. But, this one single time, I don't deny the fact that I'm a coward. I am. And I'm sorry for that fact, Yami.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm so, so, so sorry.
Please... Yami, please... Don't scream at me.
Please don't tell me that you hate me.
~ * ~
You're pounding against the soul room door again. But you can't get in because I've locked it. I don't remember how I locked it - and I don't know how to unlock it. So I'm stuck here while you're stuck out there, each slowly freezing and dying because of the lack of the other.
Would you ever truly believe me if I told you that I was sorry and that I never ever meant for this to happen? I was scared and I was terrified for my life - so I did the only logical thing. I did the thing that I've always done: I ran away as fast and as far as I was able to, locking myself away as I did so.
And now we're both dead... or, at least, slowly dying. But what difference does it make, anyway? I'll fade away to nothing while you return once again to the Ring, biding your time, waiting an eternity for your next host. I know that you'll survive without me, though you'll be frozen - inside and out - and I... well, I'll die without you. I'll be dead. You're my other half, Yami, and I know that you realize this. Silly thing is... you haven't denied it. Or, at least, haven't denied it much.
I'm sorry, Yami.
Kami... how many times does this make it? I've lost track of how many times I've tried to apologize to you. Just as I've lost track of how many people you've killed. Hundreds, obviously. Thousands, I wouldn't put it past you. You kill when you want and when you deem it necessary.
I can feel you wash the blood from your... my... our hands, though I know you don't think I can feel it. I watch alongside next to you as the blood streams down into the sink, swirling and twisting away until it finally reaches the drain, disappearing forever to some unknown destination. I watch you as you dry our face and look at our reflection with dead and empty eyes.
A person just has to only look at you to realize that you're frozen inside.
A person just has to look at you to see that you're missing something extremely valuable to you.
(Could that something ever possibly be me? I know that it's silly and stupid and childish - but I wish that the screaming and the yelling and the cursing was because you missed me and wanted me back. But I know that it's because you hate me. After all, you've screamed those very words at me for so very long.)
~ * ~
Warmth?
Why is it warm?
It's never been this warm before... It's warm and blinding and glaringly intense - hotter than hot and burning like the Saharan sun on the unwary traveler journeying beneath its rays. I... I can't take it! ...though it feels so nice, almost melting the icicles that have grown on my arms and legs, the thin crust of ice that has covered by body from the bottom of my feet to my face. But... it's... so... intense!
And I know that it's Yugi, trying to help me... Yami... us.
I can barely feel his fingers clutching at our own; I can feel Yami try to pull away, but Yugi is desperately clutching at Yami's hand. Poor, poor Yugi. I know that he wants to help us, but he doesn't know how - no other way than to melt the ice that has formed on us. But Yugi doesn't understand that his light isn't the type of light that Yami and I need. What he and I need is... Well, what we need is... me.
Someone that can be as coldly beautiful as my stunning Yami, but still shine bright enough to be considered the Light of the pair. Glittering and precious and stunning and gorgeous - all combined with wide, innocent eyes and a softly sweet smile. Beautiful, like a distant star or a flawless diamond. You can't understand either, but you can understand that they shine with their own internal light.
I want to shine for my Yami.
I want to shatter these glacial bonds and show that Yami is wrong; I'm not a coward and that I love him... and that he loves me. Strong enough to walk alongside my Yami, pace matched for pace.
Yet how can that be if I'm not even strong enough to break my own self-imposed bonds?
Dammit, I hate myself... and Yami for calling me weak and a coward in the first place.
You claim that I'm a coward and that I'm weak. 'You're safe now!' you scream at me through my soul room's door. But how can you actually look at my soul room's door, covered in blood and smeared bits of gore, and actually have me believe that I'm safe?
You pile heaps upon heaps of treasure at my feet, crooning that it's all mine - mine to do with as I please, mine to covet and admire. Mine to marvel over. You were a thief when you were still alive; you still are and you cannot possibly believe that you can deny that fact.
So how could you possibly understand that I never cared about riches or other material things as you did... do? All I cared about was having you wrap your arms - your Darkness - around me and warming me with its velvety touch. You never realized this, did you? You never realized that this was the reason behind why I ran: Because you never did wrap your Darkness around my Light.
All you did was pile treasure - cold and glittering and dead - at my feet.
~ * ~
I'm not ignoring you, Yami. I may have locked my soul room and forgotten how to retrieve the keys, but please know that I am not ignoring you. How could that even be possible?
I hear each and every word that you utter: Every oath, every curse, every promise, and every lie.
You've claimed to have done so much for me. And you have - in your own eyes. In my own eyes, however, you have done nothing except to kill and bleed others dry. You've never held me - not once, not even when I asked you to.
So of course I ran. So of course I cloistered myself away from you and the world around us.
After all, a broken heart will do that to you... along with broken promises and shattered dreams. Haven't you ever had your own heart and dreams and very soul shattered - like you've done to me? Don't you even realize what you've done to me, Yami? Well... don't you?
You're yelling at me once again. I've lost track of how many times you've done this - it's all finally just blurred together into just one long and never ending scream.
You claim that I've been snuffed out, Yami. You claim that I can't even face myself. But I face myself each and every single time you have us look in the mirror. I can see our reflection, just as well as you can. If I've been snuffed out, Yami, then you've been swallowed whole, too. A yami can't live without his hikari; didn't you know that?
And if you claim that I've been snuffed out, then you must also ask yourself this, Yami: If yadonushi has been snuffed out, then who has crushed the Light? Darkness and Light, Yami. They cannot possibly exist without the other... but one can certainly extinguish the other. Doesn't it make you wonder, Yami, just who snuffed me out if the case may be?
The sad thing is: I do still love you, Yami.
So very much.
~ * ~
You're screaming at me to come out again, Yami. I can hear each and every single word. Each syllable is crystal clear in my mind, ringing with a resonance that I've never felt before. You're screaming and screaming and screaming.
Can't you hear me answer you?
Can't you hear me scream back at you?
I'm screaming as loud as I can, as loud as I've ever screamed before. I'm sobbing, begging and pleading for you to just finally hear me. Why can't you hear me, Yami? I want you to come to me, break down my soul room door and just hold me in your arms, warming me with your intoxicating and heady Darkness. Why can't you hear my cries, Yami?
I can't come to you, Yami.
I need...
...want...
...you to come to me.
After all, I miss you, too.
But how can you expect me to come to you when I'm locked within my own mind, trapped within my soul room, slowly freezing to death while feeling you freeze along with me? You damn me, Yami. But I still love you - I'll always love you. For you, I could learn to love the taste of blood.
Come to me, Yami? Come and save me, Yami?
...please?
~ * ~
~ Neko-chan ~
"I've/Become so numb/I can't feel you there/Become so tired/So much more aware..." - 'Numb,' by Linkin Park
~Owari~